Unified global spend platform Brex has launched an AI-enabled Accounts Payable (AP) solution combining enhanced bill pay capabilities and purchase cards. Brex payables provide the controls required by an AP team to manage spend seamlessly across invoices and purchase cards, with the flexibility sought by employees for business spend.

Brex’s AI-enabled payables solution capabilities The press release details that the product leverages AI across the lifecycle of an invoice, from receiving and matching to approving and coding, providing real-time visibility and control of expenses across all payment types: card, ACH, and wire. Combined with Brex’s pre-approved spend controls, Live Budgets, Brex payables can enforce bespoke expense policies, per vendor or project, and track budgeted versus actuals in real time. With payables, AP teams are enabled access to high-limit, yet increasingly controlled purchase cards (P-cards) that provide the flexibility and security of a credit card with the transaction-specific controls required of high-balance spend.

P-cards are credit cards oftentimes provisioned for specific use cases, including those for departments, vendors, teams, and indirect procurement like operational spend. Brex’s P-cards operate on the Empower platform, with the same AI-enabled transaction reconciliation tools offered by Brex’s expense management software and employee credit cards. Henrique Dubugras, co-founder, and co-CEO of Brex stated that the combination of Brex’s bill pay offering and its purchase cards helps companies control all non-payroll spend, invoiced or otherwise.

The spokesperson believes this to be particularly important as procurement accounts for a big portion of customer spend, and without Brex, even small purchases could take as much as a week to get approved, slowing down businesses. Typically, after salary and benefits, procurement spend is the largest budget category for a business. It involves infrequent, ad-hoc purchases that usually require purchase orders (PO) and lengthy approval processes to ensure alignment with company policies, cash flow requirements, or vendor contract terms.

Brex payables help automate these tasks, simplifying how employees make important purchases quickly and within policy while enabling finance teams to track spend, business travel, payments, and reimbursements in one place. Brex’s intelligent pattern recognition across multiple payment types also helps accounting teams better identify fraudulent transactions and merchants alike. Global features of Brex payables include: Total spend management in a single place.

Empower is a spend management platform functioning across invoices, bill pay, purchase cards, corporate cards, and corporate travel, AI automation for bill payments and AP. Brex leverages AI to extract invoice details at an itemised level, match invoices to PO, flag suspicious invoices for fraud, and code invoice details to accounts, all done on a unified platform. Purchase cards with customisable controls and global capabilities. P-cards enable transaction-level approval flows and restrictions designed to offer unique visibility and control to AP teams.

They include purchase amounts, approved vendors, and/or approved or blocked categories, as well as set monthly or time-based spending limits to ensure that they are not impacted by charges. Pay vendors globally. Customers can pay their bills for international vendors and the purchase cards are global-ready with 3DS, chip and pin protection, and worldwide acceptance of up to 20 different currencies. Multiple funding sources. Brex customers can fund invoice payments by connecting their corporate bank account or use their Brex business account for fast bill payments, through wires, ACH, or checks.

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